Running inter-club competitions with PhotoCompViewer and/or EasyComp

PhotoCompViewer has several features that help you run inter-club competitions. Clubs can prepare competition entries using PhotoCompViewer, PhotoCompLeague, EasyComp or PhotoCompEntry, but the competition itself needs to be run using PhotoCompViewer.

Deciding the rules

First, the clubs need to agree how the competition will be conducted. In particular, you need to agree:

The sequence in which images will be shown. This can be:
- Random
- Interleaved - an image from one club followed by an image from the next club
- Random interleaved - a random image from one club followed by a random image from the next club
- a pre-arranged pattern
The maximum number of images that may be included by any one photographer
The maximum score
If there is to be a single winning image, and if this image is to score an additional mark (see below)
Whether scoring using the keyboard is acceptable, or if the clubs want to keep their own scores on paper

Preparing the competition

Ideally, each club should prepare its own competition entries by using PhotoCompViewer or EasyComp to produce a "Competition" (.pcvc) file. This can then be taken to the competition venue or sent by mail or e-mail to the organiser, together with the images themselves.

Alternatively, the host club could define a suitable competition using PhotoCompSpec and the participating clubs could use PhotoCompEntry to submit their entries.

You can define a format for file names that contains the club, photographer, class and title using PhotoCompCD, as ask clubs to submit their entries in this format. You can then use PhotoCompCD to receive them and process them automatically.

Of course, if clubs are unable or unwilling to prepare their own entries, the host club has to enter them into PhotoCompBuilder in the normal way, but making sure that the "Club" field is correct for each entry.

If clubs that have prepared their own competition files, you, as the host club, must incorporate them into a single competition. Use the File/Incorporate another competition file PhotoCompViewer menu item to do this one club at a time. You will be asked if this is an inter-club competition, and if any club names are missing from the entries (and they will be if a club has used EasyComp to prepare the competition), you will be asked to supply it.

When you have created a single competition file, use the Edit/Resequence entries PhotoCompViewer menu item to put the entries into the required sequence:

Random - just click the Random button.
Interleaved - click the ID Sequence button. This changes the IDs of the entries so that they interleave but keeps each club's entries in the sequence in which they were submitted.
Random interleaved - click the Random button before the ID Sequence button.
a pre-arranged pattern - use the up and down arrow buttons to arrange entries as you wish.

If required, you can then print score sheets with Show/Prints core sheets.

Note: if a club uses PhotoCompViewer, it can use PhotoCompLeague to help select its entries from those in previous internal club competitions. You can also use PhotoCompLeague to check that the limit on the number images per photographer has not been exceeded, either for a particular club or across the competition. Alternatively, you could select images using ImageArchivist.

Note: to submit entries in a particular order, either enter them into EasyComp or PhotoCompBuilder in the required order, or use PhotoCompViewer's Edit/Resequence entries menu item and use the up and down arrow buttons.

Running the competition

Once the competition has been prepared as described above, you can run it in the usual way - you can have a run through, hold back images, see the top scorers etc. When judging is complete, use the Results/Display inter-club results menu item to show the results on the projector screen. You can then use the other results publishing features of PhotoCompViewer in the normal way, and analyse the results further with PhotoCompLeague.

Note: Awarding a "Best image" mark with the "*" key actually gives the image one more mark than the maximum - for example, the starred image scores 21 when the maximum is 20. This can upset the inter-club totals!